


Overwhelming Positivity

by withtheworms



Category: Undertale
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Sibling Rivalry, emotional overreaction, fight, have you tried.... talking about it?, none of this is super healthy but who am i to tell these skeletons how to have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26895589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withtheworms/pseuds/withtheworms
Summary: It's Mads' birthday!!!! Happy birthday Mads!!!! Here's a Cream + Nightmare fic about an idea Mads, HJ, and I have discussed at length, namely: Nightmare and Cross's innate jealousy, dislike and distrust of one another causing real physical pain for Dream.
Relationships: Cream - Relationship, Dream/Cross
Comments: 9
Kudos: 98





	Overwhelming Positivity

“Cross and I are leaving.”

The words struck Nightmare like a physical blow, and he felt his body tense on instinct as he looked across the table at Dream.

"I beg your pardon?”

Dream grimaced- a soft, uncomfortable expression, as if this was somehow merely awkward for him, and not an intense, irreparable betrayal. 

"Well it’s just… I never really intended to stay forever. I never…”

His words trailed off, but Nightmare felt them implicitly.

_I never wanted to be here._

Nightmare could barely process this. A dull throb in his skull began building to a piercing pressure as he tried to unpack what Dream had said- what Dream was still saying. How could he do this? How could he betray him like this? After all these weeks and months when Nightmare had been _here_ , had been ever-attentive, had been _trying_ to be all the things Dream asked for. All the things Dream sighed softly about as he placed his gentle but agonizing ultimatums forever just out of Nightmare’s grasp, telling him to please be better, please be patient, please be mine, please be _good_ ... Always wincing and shifting uncomfortably because everything Nightmare did, everything Nightmare _was_ seemed to cause him discomfort. 

And Nightmare had tried. He’d been trying so _hard_ . Contrary to his duties, contrary to his _role…_ Twisting himself in knots to be what it was Dream said he wanted.

And now to hear that Dream was not only leaving, but that he was planning to leave with... _him_.

Nightmare’s gaze focused on Cross, who was standing just behind Dream’s seat, forever at attention and watching Nightmare with a guarded expression. He had a sun emblazoned at his throat- when had he started wearing a sun? (And why had he never, in all his years with Nightmare, worn a moon?)

The pressure was growing inside Nightmare’s skull. He tried to focus on the moment- where they were, what they were doing. They’d been having breakfast- he and Dream, with Cross standing guard. The morning had been calm, his castle had been quiet, things had been fine, so where had this even come from?

How could they do this to him?

“Night?..”

Dream’s voice was gentle, cutting through the morass of Nightmare’s mind in a way that made him focus razor-sharp on his brother’s small, timid smile. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? We’ll be- _I’ll_ be out of your way. And Cross and I… we’ll be okay.” Dream paused to cast a glance over his shoulder, smiling warmly at Cross in a way that made Nightmare’s gut twist with sharp, bitter envy.

“We tried. But... this isn’t getting better, so it’s time for us to move on. All of us.”

Nightmare felt as if the room had dropped out from under him.

He was going to be sick. 

"This’ll be for the best. I promise it'll be okay.”

_How dare he._

Nightmare didn’t realize he’d moved until he heard a clatter of dishes and found that he’d overturned the table. He was wild; feral. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t _think_ -

" _Nightmare_!”

His body was moving on its own. His tentacles, which had wound tightly around himself as Dream spoke, now erupted out of him with force. Sharp-edged and biting, breaking dishes, stabbing into the floor, and impaling-

Cross.

When the table had turned, Cross had moved on instinct, positioning himself between Nightmare and Dream as he summoned his own magic. He’d parried one tentacle almost effortlessly, but the third, the fifth, the sixth... Nightmare usually manifested four, but that barely scratched the surface of what was possible- what he was _capable_ of. More burst out of him, slashing and stabbing and surging forward as he grasped for more, for control, for a way to put a stop to the desperate pain and overwhelming hot anger he was feeling.

“Nightmare, that’s _enough_!” Dream’s voice was coming to him as if from a world away.

He’d make them pay. How could they do this to him? How could they just _leave_?

“Nightmare, _please_!”

There was something frantic in Dream’s voice, beyond his fear- it sounded like pain. Like the sound a small animal would make when it found itself trapped in a mouth full of large, vicious teeth.

“ ** _Nightmare_**!!”

Nightmare’s attention ricocheted back into the moment and he found himself crouched over Cross, who was speared in several places by his tentacles. He was breathing hard, and Cross looked exhausted, blood and magic pooling underneath him in a slow-spreading mess. 

How long had they been fighting? 

“I don’t want to fight you, Nightmare,” Cross hissed. His fangs were bared and he was not yet ready to back down, but the amount of blood pouring out of him was truly staggering at this point. 

“He asked me,” Nightmare sneered, his anger roiling hot and overwhelming. “He begged me. He _wanted_ to be here.”

“Things change.” There was a glint of something in Cross’s eyes. Gloating, as though he had any right to keep what he’d selfishly taken for himself.

“You think you’re better than me,” Nightmare snapped, tentacles twisting in a way that caused Cross’s expression to tense and a gasp of pain to escape him. “You think you can do this? After all I’ve done for you?”

“It’s already done,” Cross spat, then grunted as Nightmare’s hands surged forward, grasping his throat as he _squeezed_. 

“ _Cross-_!”

The pitch of Dream’s tone caused both skeletons to twist, their standoff interrupted as they properly looked towards Dream, who was hunched so that he’d bent nearly double. As they watched one of his legs gave out, forcing him to crumple to his knees. 

“Cross, _please_ stop.” Dream was begging, pleading, his hands clutched to his chest above where he held his soul. Cross struggled as he gasped for air, making a vague gesture towards Nightmare, whose hands were still clasped tight around his throat. 

“Do you see, Cross?” Nightmare rasped, his voice low so that only Cross could hear it. “You hurt him, too. You’re no better than me. We’re the same broken, rotten stuff at our core.”

The bone attacks surged up and out of Cross on sheer, desperate instinct. They connected- which was a surprise maybe to both of them- hitting Nightmare square in the chest and throwing him off, a grunt escaping him as he stumbled backwards.

Nightmare hadn’t expected that.

“Dream-!” Before Cross could even manage to pull in a few ragged breaths, he was already pulling himself into a crouch. “I’m alright. I’m here. I’ll-”

“You need to _stop_ ,” Dream begged, large, watery tears lining his sockets as he continued to sag under the combined weight of his brother and his lover’s negative feelings for one another. “It’s too much. Cross, stop. P _lease_.”

There was a hasty scramble of motion as Cross’s bone attacks withdrew from where they’d pierced through Nightmare’s body, bursting into fine motes of harmless light that dissipated into the air. Cross winced, spitting out a mouthful of blood and spent magic as he limped towards Dream, but the smaller skeleton shied away from him as he approached.

Nightmare couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the hurt that was radiating out from Dream’s precious guard in that moment. Cross’s pain filled him with a vicious satisfaction. 

“This is the problem,” Dream said plainly, wincing against the feelings he was being so overwhelmed by; the anger and hate and the resentment and jealousy. The deep-rot of negativity that Cross and Nightmare set off in one another that made it impossible for them to coexist, despite how hard he’d wanted them to try. 

“It doesn’t matter how much you try for me. If you hate each _other_ so deeply.... I can’t stay here.”

“I’ll do better,” Cross promised blindly, desperately. “I can change. I… we’ll get along. Right, Nightmare?”

It was insane to Nightmare, the readiness with which Cross leapt to agree- loudly- to whatever Dream asked of him. 

Though... as he stood at the focus of their combined expectation, he supposed, cynically, that he was not so different. While not so slaveringly outspoken, deep down he was beginning to see that, alarmingly, the similarities he shared with Cross were many.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising why Dream insistently held on so tightly to them both.

There was a heaviness in the air as the three stood in silence. The pain Dream was in remained palpable, but despite himself he at last relented to Cross’s presence, leaning a shoulder heavily against the other skeleton, who did his best to support him, even as he continued to drip blood and magic onto the floor. 

“I’m not asking you to do this,” Dream mumbled, exhaustion in every syllable. “I can see how hard it’s been. I know how hard you’ve tried. With some time… some distance… I know I can manage this on my own.”

But that’s not what he wanted. 

And it wasn’t what Nightmare wanted. 

Finally, Nightmare relented, his tentacles sagging as the last of his fight went out of him. 

“If this is what you need...” Cross was speaking the words quietly as he reached down and fumbled for Dream’s hand, even as Dream brushed him aside and began pressing healing magic into him. “We’ll do it. Anything for you, Dream.”

Cross looked at Nightmare pointedly, and Nightmare found himself pinned by Dream’s small hopeful smile. 

“Yes,” the word rasped out of him, sounding strange and foreign as Nightmare felt himself drawn, captivated, towards the two. 

For Dream he’d get along. 

For Dream he’d continue to break himself to pieces. 

For Dream it was worth it. 

“Anything for you, Dream.”


End file.
